Decoding the Brain's Learning Machine

| Newsline

In studies with monkeys, Johns Hopkins researchers report that they have uncovered significant new details about how the cerebellum — the “learning machine” of the mammalian brain — makes predictions and learns from its mistakes, helping us execute complex motor actions such as accurately shooting a basketball into a net or focusing your eyes on an object across the room.

The investigators provide a better understanding of why degenerative diseases that affect the cerebellum cause people to lose control of their movements. Their results demonstrate that the cerebellum is organized in a very different way than current designs of artificial neural networks, which are currently used in machine learning and artificial intelligence.